noticeboard.ru.ac.za

Early on Monday morning, we'll be making changes to network address allocations in areas of central campus. The areas that'll be most affected will be:
- the Biological Sciences building,
- Physics and Electronic Services, and
- the main library

People in those areas will need to reboot their PCs when they arrive in the morning so that their PCs learn the new network settings.

Networking in the following areas may be slightly affected: English, Geography, ADC, Geology, Botany, Psychology, Printing Unit, Graphic Services Unit.

PCs in those areas will not be able to communicate directly with PCs in Biological Sciences, Physics, Electronic Services and the library. Again, rebooting the PC will allow it to learn the correct new network settings.

More details about these changes will be posted at http://noticeboard.ru.ac.za/ and should you have any queries, please contact the helpdesk (support@ru.ac.za, x8288)

Further technical details:

The reason for these changes is that we're running out of IP addresses in certain parts of the central campus, so we're re-organising the address allocation there.

In the Biological Sciences building, the IP addresses of all PCs will change, as this is the area where IP addresses are most scarce at present. The subnet mask and default gateway will also change (to 255.255.254.0 and 146.231.86.1 respectively).

In all other areas, the IP addresses of PCs will not be changed. In Physics and Electronic Services, the subnet mask will change to 255.255.255.0 and the default gateway will be 146.231.84.1. In the main library, the subnet mask will be 255.255.255.0 and the default gateway 146.231.85.1.

In the remaining areas (viz. English, Geography, ADC, Geology, Botany, Psychology, Printing Unit, Graphic Services Unit) only the subnet mask will change, to 255.255.252.0. That will have a minimal effect, as it will only impact direct communication with machines in Biological Sciences, Physics, E.S. and the Library.

All PCs and devices that are configured to acquire an IP address automatically (via DHCP) will learn the correct new settings when they reboot after the changes are made. Any devices that have statically configured network address settings will need to be changed by hand.

As above, if you have further queries, mail support@ru.ac.za.